


The Music of the Night

by mydogwatson



Series: WHILE THE MUSIC LASTS [18]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, Pre and Post Reichenbach, pre and post slash, sometimes words aren't necessary
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-29
Updated: 2013-09-29
Packaged: 2017-12-27 23:51:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/985121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mydogwatson/pseuds/mydogwatson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three musical episodes in the life of Sherlock and John.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Music of the Night

**Author's Note:**

> Another weekend day so a second story. Thanks again for the kind attention being given these stories.

Nighttime sharpens, heightens  
each sensation. Darkness wakes  
and stirs imagination, silently  
the senses abandon their defences…  
You alone can make my song take  
flight. Help me make the music of  
the night.

-Susan Boyle

 

Music: The art of sound in time that expresses ideas and emotions in significant forms.

PRELUDE

 

Sherlock stands at the window, looking out at the falling snow, and raises the violin. “Any requests?” he asks softly.

“Whatever you fancy playing,” comes the usual response. The ‘usual’ is reassuring at the moment.

He half-turns to look at the sofa where John is stretched out, clad in pajama trousers and a teeshirt. The pallor of a week in hospital is still visible in his face, even with just the fire lighting the room. The edge of the bandage wrapping his chest is seen peeking out of the neckline of the shirt.

Sherlock thinks for a moment, during which time John waits patiently. Finally he lifts the bow. “I think Serenade No. 13 in G Major.”

As the first few notes of the piece float across the room, John grins. “Oh, I know this one,” he says, as always delighted that he has recognised something Sherlock is playing.

Sherlock gives a small twitch of his lips in response.

John settles back into the sofa to listen.

After a moment, Sherlock turns back to watch the snow again, as well as the reflection of John in the window. He does not think about the past week. Here, now, there is no blood, no pain, no absolute desperation to save the man dying on the filthy floor of an abandoned garage in Wapping. There is no fear.

Tonight there is only the snow, the music, and the two men. Sherlock plays and watches John’s reflection. John listens and watches Sherlock.  
They both understand.

 

INTERLUDE

John is sitting on the roof outside of 221B. He has crawled out there to be alone, because being alone inside the flat is just too lonely.

London, unbelievably, still exists, is still there two days later, a living breathing entity. How can that be? London should have died with Sher---with Him. He was so much a part of the city and it of him that it seems impossible one can go on without the other.

John rests his folded arms on his knees and props his chin there. He listens to London in the night.

Automobile horns.

A police siren in the distance.

The rattle of a rubbish collection truck.

A baby crying next door.

A drunken man yelling at an equally drunk woman, who screams right back at him.

Oddly, salsa music.

A helicopter hovers nearby, as if this is a warzone, and maybe it is.

John allows himself to fantasize that the sounds he hears are a sort of symphony of the city. A musical tribute to the Lost.

All night, as he sits there, the sounds slowly fade away until it is almost quiet, though not completely, never completely.

There is still the occasional car going by. Two cats fight in the alley. A stack of newspapers hits the pavement outside the corner shop. A phone rings and after a moment he recognises it as his own, although it is a mystery as to whom would be calling him at this hour. Drunk Harry, probably, checking up on him. Whoever. He does not answer, because there is no one in the world he wants to talk to  
.  
Now he hears the city---His city---coming awake again, shaking off the night, ready for a new day.  
John listens, although the coming day does not interest him at all. After a moment, he buries his face in his arms and prays to whatever obscure deity might take an interest in one desperate soul in a city of millions. “Please,” he whispers. “Just…please.”

No one can hear him, of course, over the music of the city.

 

 

FINALE

A sigh wanders across the room.

The only response is a huff of almost laughter.

Moments pass.

A louder, more disgruntled sigh is thrown through the air.

This time the response is an exhalation of breath, not a sigh really, but just air vacating exasperated lungs.

It is never easy. They do not expect it to be. Sometimes it is just better not to speak. Words simply get in the way.

There has been no sleep for three days and very little food. Worse, the case ended in an unsatisfactory way. Any words that emerge now will be irritable and sharp-edged. They are still capable of wounding one another, although rarely intentionally.

The last sigh is a broken, hurting thing that limps through the silence.

A symphony that only these two ever hear begins finally: the soft flapping of bare feet against the floor, followed by the gentle plop of two knees colliding with aged wood. The exotic whoosh of silk fabric being tossed aside; the muted metallic clank of a belt opening. The whisper of denim being pulled down and free of legs. Finally naked flesh slaps against worn leather as two bodies settle down together. Cushions collapse with a quiet whoosh.

A now-contented sigh wafts across the skin of a ruined shoulder.

An answering sigh damply touches a porcelain throat.  
Three days since there had been any sleep, so the next sound is a slight snore issuing from an aristocratic nose.

Followed by a quiet murmur of private amusement.

fini


End file.
